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Published: July 16th 2007
what a bloody crazy adventure sumatra has been! a far cry from the ho-hum of the cities, the moment we arrived on indo soil it's been go, go, go!
waking at 5am, we began our epic journey from singapore to lake toba, a 25 hr non-stop journey consisting of 1 train, 3 ferries & 5 busses. from singapore we took a short ferry to pulau batam, our first indo port where we were to collect visas, change cash and run to the next ferry port to catch the last daily ferry, all in about 15mins. apparantly nobody's ever made it and lived to tell the tale... we had crazy men running alongside us to hurry us up and lead us to the port, ruairi shot off ahead and i was trailing behind fast. mind you, we're both carrying several packs each, and now my thong has just snapped so i have to piff em in the bin and keep running bare feet. at this point i have resigned myself to missing the ferry and staying a night on the s**thole industial island (ruairi is not aware of this fact as i watch the backpack with legs shooting off in
the distance for the port). it reminded me of that jimeoin joke about 'go-aheads' being another name for thongs (or flip-flops). if you have to turn around in them, you cant just chuck it in reverse, you have to do a u-turn, hence continually 'going ahead', and if one comes off (or breaks in my case), and you're running for the bus, you inevitably, go stuff it-i'll catch the next one. anyway, at this point, one of the guys turns around to me and goes 'hurry-up! exercise!', which i took as 'i need some', which pissed me off enough to shout some profanities at him and shoot off after ruairi. another guy started running with us and organised our tickets and stopped the ferry, still running all the way. it was crazy, like one huge relay race, but we made it! G.B.O.R.'s!
the 7 hr ferry to dumai wasn't too bad. we were shoved in like sardines but i could deal with that. there were huge plastic buckets for rubbish at the end of each isle, which we'd both been using and i was having ciggies outside, stubbing them out and conscienciously bringing them back inside for the buckets.
on one of my ciggie breaks, one of the boat men came out with one of these buckets and hurrlled it over the edge and into the ocean!! followed by the other 9 or so! just thrown in! plasctic bags, bottles, you name it, it went in. i'd never seen such a brazen act of pollution right in front of me. this went on another 5 times i reckon, needless to say i carried the rest of my rubbish off the boat.
we arrived in dumai where we caught a public bus to the bus station. when we arrived there were about 100 local bus touts, screaming and banging on the bus. i stood at the top of the bus stairs where there was 2 lines of security holding back the desperate men. for a moment i had the feeling of stepping out of a limo and onto the red carpet, but i was more or less grabbed and shoved into an office where we were kept 'safe' till the crazies were gone. the 'boss man' said we had to stay for a while and one of his 'men' would take us where we wanted to go. more crazies
came into the office, this time iraqis, screaming like banchees at the 'boss man'. we thought they had been robbed, turned out they were just mad about the price of the bus fare to jakarta.
2 more busses and finally we're on our bus on the way to lake toba. finally we can breath and chill a little. ruairi begins to fall asleep at this point and one of the bus boys insists that he lay down on the back row to get a better nap. ruairi declines, but this boy just persists and persists untill it's easier for ruairi to just go and lay down. after he's been asleep for a while, the boy sits next to me and chats away for a while. to cut a long story short, he busts the moves on me! brazen little bugger! and the whole time we were thinking, 'geeze, he really wants ruairi to get a good sleep!' after that, we get shoved into a 10 seater mini-bus, with 17 people (11 of them being smoky joe devolas), and finally arrive at lake toba. another ferry to the island and were in our guesthouse by 10am.
lake toba is
basically a mammoth lake with a mammoth island in the middle of it. the lake itself is 30km wide, 100km long and 450 metres deep. it is a huge volcano that collapsed on itself thousands of years ago after a huge erruption. a caldera then formed, which then filled with water, and inturn the caldera uplifted causing the singapore sized island of samsoir.
we slept most of this first day as we were totally wrecked, and deciding to hike up the mountain the following day to the hot springs. during the coarse of the night ruairi began spewing and didn't stop until about 9am. i was going to go for a walk by myself but also began to feel not so good. as ruairi was sleeping his off and getting a little better, i took a turn at toilet hugging. so, we didn't do anything all day and had to leave the following morning as we're now on a strict timetable. a bit dissapointing really, but it's a beautiful place and our room was literally 5 metres from the lake so we still really enjoyed it.
the following morning we headed to bukit lawang, in the pursuit of
orang-utans in the jungles of the gunung leuser national park. the national park is home to an orang-utan orphanage, for the orang-utans that have been orphaned from de-forrestisation (thanks to palm oil plantations-no more lippy ladies!). there is a feeding platform also, where the semi-wild orangs come to get some bread and milk, which is bland enough to force them to want to also seek their own food in the jungle.
we stayed in an eco-lodge on the edge of the forrest that was really, really nice. the following day we did a 6 hr trek with a guide into the jungle. i have to say i wasn't expecting to see anything as i never seem to see anything on these bloody things (a cow on safari for gods sake!). but 'oh my god'!!! the first sighting came just half an hour into our trek. high up in the trees 4 fluffy orange balls. it was still raining a bit so they were protecting themselves from the rain and not moving much, (they don't like rain on their faces so usually sit still with 'umbrella leaves' over their heads). totally awed by this we continued along this time to
come across a second group of 5, all very close to human level. our guide ushered us quickly across the path of one of the 'angry' orang-utans, 'mina', as the other guide distracted her with bananas. another american tourist started screaming to not feed her as technically it's not allowed except for the feeding platform, but he only did it for our safety. needless to say, 'mina' then got angry at all the commotion and banana deprivation and came at us and we all ran like hell up a steep hill into safety. the american went the other way and we mused that 'mina' may have got him for being a banana scab as we never saw him again. further along and not expecting to see more, another froup of 4!! this time it was 'oocho', the king of the orangs, weighing in at 100+ kgs. he was hanging out with his 2 ladies and 1 of his many babies. i swear we were so close to him and his family we could have touched them, but it's best to keep distance. it's the one time i wished that i didn't dye my hair as apparantly, the guide said that
the orangs always come down to the red heads to touch their hair. bloody funny. we also had the pleasure of seeing 'oocho' have sex with one of his ladies while the other lady got extremely upset and tried to break it up. continuing on and more than content with everything we had seen, we came across another group of 3, a mama and 2 babies, one of which was under a year old and very cute!
so what a day! its probably the best experience i'v had on this trip and a hard one to beat i would say! 4 groups of orangs, 16 in total! other people trekked for 2 days and just saw 2! haha! also failing to mention earlier, there was a huge flood in 2003 that was caused by felled trees across the river which created a dam and eventually exploded and tore apart the village of bukit lawang, killing about 250 people and leaving thousands homeless. they are in the middle of flood protection construction to prevent any future disasters. the township desperately needs the tourists back as numbers have halved since this. it's an amazing place and i urge everyone touring sumatra
to visit!
so, sadly leaving this place behind, we hop another bus and 20 hrs later arrive in bukittinggi where i sit now writing to you. we did a very quick tour of the city before nightfall, taking in the canyon, japanese wwII caves, the zoo, views of the 3 volcanoes, and the dutch built 'fort kock' (hehe). we're doing crazy travel speeds now as someone 'ahem' refuses to travel indonesian airlines. so first thing tomorrow morn, we again alight a bus, this time for 30 hrs!!! headed for jakarta. might i mention that a flight costs about the same money and takes 2 hrs! but no! he refuses. the only way i think i'll forgive him for this is if that plane ends up going down in a burst of flames...
anyway, sorry for the length of this bloody entry (hope it hasn't killed you as much reading it as it has me writing it!), but such an epic island deserves an epic blog i reckon! i've travelled all over s.e asia to find out that the asian country i first arrived in 6 years ago, is still by far my favourite. like the smell of those
garam ciggarttes...aaaaghhh...indonesia...welcome back!
larry
ps. i understand if you're too exhausted now to leave a comment!
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d and b
non-member comment
o so funny
we really injoyed your blog ,O to see u running for that boat,